Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell SC Series vs HPE Nimble Storage comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell SC Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Frame-Based Disk Arrays (3rd)
HPE Nimble Storage
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.7%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.9%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
Steven McClendon - PeerSpot reviewer
Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering
I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.
Ajit Pratap Kundan - PeerSpot reviewer
A tool that offers protection against ransomware and other enterprise-level attacks
HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high, making it one of its downsides. HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high compared with any HCI solutions, like HPE's SimpliVity, Nutanix, VMware, or Dell VxRail. A person requires a special skill set to operate HPE Nimble Storage because there are hardly any solutions similar to Nimble Storage in the market. The product's support can be made faster and more responsive if HPE trains its partners in such a way that they acquire more expertise on Nimble Storage through the training sessions. HPE Nimble Storage is dependent on only VMware vSphere Hypervisor. In the future, HPE has to make Nimble Storage feasible with other hypervisors like Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix Acropolis, and RHEV, meaning it should be hypervisor agnostic.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"It is easy to use, expand the hard drives, add storage, and set up replication."
"I've found the stability to be very good."
"This solution is easy to use."
"The performance benefits weren't surprising, we expected that. What we didn't expect were the densification benefits that we got out of going all-flash. We're able to put more applications on the arrays because of how all-flash performs. The way some of the application profiles have responded to all-flash has been really pleasing."
"It has been one of the most stable products in our data center."
"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."
"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."
"The process of reallocating data from fast disks (SSD or SAS) to slow disks (SATA) gives you better performance and better use of resources."
"The tool’s support is feasible."
"InfoSight has helped us resolved an issue where the snapshots were growing too big."
"I use InfoSight quite a bit. It works well. It allows you to get some insight into what's happening in your environment immediately, instead of having to send things off and having them analyzed and sent back to you."
"Nimble's phone-home capability is decent. The compression, dedupe, and caching are also solid. Generally, I like the simplicity. It's almost a set-and-forget solution."
"InfoSight has identified controller failures or performance issues."
"The fact that you can manage the requirements is one the most valuable features of HPE Nimble Storage. The other is the rapid deployment time."
"It has allowed us to upgrade our DMS to the latest version and reuse the older array as the DR storage for VMware SRM."
"It dynamically understands what data is being stored on it and where to store it, because they have got a flash array at the front, then obviously the standard style of storage at the back."
 

Cons

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"We need better data deduplication."
"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"The software layer has to improve."
"One option I would like to see is, when you're up on the view-screen, to be able to incorporate getting to what HPE call the iLO, the Integrated Lights-Out. To be able to get that instead of having to go back and trying to find IP addresses and re-institute those would be good. It would be good to be able to that put on the initial splash screen."
"The interface could be improved. It should have an application point of view."
"The lower model, the 3000, should have duplication. It doesn't right now. It's only from 5000 that this is offered, but it depends on the performance. It could be they don't offer it on lower models because the duplication is too much of a burden to the performance."
"In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage."
"The cost of the solution could be better."
"In terms of additional features, I would like to see some kind of I/O meter, to indicate what we are using in terms of performance. I would like to see automation with that, where it would give me the trends. I want to know those things easily, to help me know where issues are going to occur."
"I don't think the solution is very scalable."
"We had times that we needed a file service solution. We've used FluidFS, but it's a solution that is being transitioned out."
"The solution requires a higher availability."
"​The backup solution that they are using now probably has not been deduped."
"I’d like to see in-line deduplication extended to Nimble non-flash (called “Hybrid”) arrays, even if it’s only the C500 and higher controllers that support it."
"There is a new version of the Nimble and 3PAR systems called Alletra and they have a lot of new features."
"The large hardware components may be difficult to fit into some standard racks."
"The solution could improve by having more granularity. For example, having the ability to go deeper into specific IO channels or specific latency issues that can happen would be a benefit. HPE has this ability on their side but it would be useful to have it on our side."
"There should be faster interfaces."
"The solution needs to be an active-active controller."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."
"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."
"Always keep in mind, this is not just a enclosure with disks is a complete SAN as a service. There is software, license, and storage in one single solution."
"The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."
"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."
"This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors."
"We have found the solution to be affordable."
"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."
"From a price/performance perspective, Nimble simply can’t be beat. From a TCO perspective, the stability alone pays for itself."
"We don't require a license. If we used HPE InfoSight, then we would require a license, but for our needs, we don't need one."
"If you are a super small company, the product is probably not right for you. It is out of your price range. Anything from mid-SMB up to enterprise, it is absolutely the right product."
"The solution is a little pricey compared to others on the market."
"The price is negotiable and when we first received the quote it was expensive, but after dealing with them and receiving a discount, the price is reasonable."
"The pricing for this product is somewhat high."
"It is cost-effective, which is important for a service provider, because you're competing with hyper-scale providers who do things at extremely large scale, who tend to kill you on price if you're not careful."
"If you don't go cheap, it is eventually worth it. However, the initial investment is high."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
842,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
69%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
What do you like most about Dell SC Series?
I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?
Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...
What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?
In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage. If I want...
How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...
Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?
HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...
What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?
The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
SC Series Storage, Compellent
Nimble Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
Ace Relocation, Atkins Nutritionals, Berkeley Research Group, Canadian International School, City of Hot Springs, Clackamas County, Corona-Norco Unified School District, Ideal Integrations, Linear Technology, P&O Maritime, Retail Apparel Group (RAG), Virtual Radiologic
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. HPE Nimble Storage and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.